Beer: Ratings & Reviews

Pours a murky brownish red with about a finger of creamy head. Nice strong estery aroma. Lots of fruit here. After the first taste, I had to pause in order to admire the complexity. Starts off full-bodied with roasted malts. There is some chocolate and and caramel, and even some smoke. Then you taste some dark fruits, and then finally the citrous and hops. True to Stone fashion, the hops are big, but they aren't huge like the Ruination. The finish is slightly alcoholic with some bitter chocolate and citrous. Damn this beer is good, too bad it is going to be gone soon. I need to store some.

I had this about 4 months ago and thought it was so-so. I've changed my mind.

The beer pours a chestnut brown with a generous tan head. Very clear. No hazing.

Smell is light chocolate (like a whiff of swiss miss), cinnamon, and something green and sweet like mint. Some indetermininte light spicing as well. Nice. Not overpowering. Little hop aroma.

Taste is very malty and on the sweet side, but certainly not cloying. Chocolate characteristics, but not chocolatey. Starts with a snap of bitter, then smooths out into something resembling chocolate. Very nice. Spice character adds a nice complexity.

This beer is an auburn brown. The head is light brown, almost tan like. It disapears somewhat quickly. It smells of chocolate. Some burnt malt also. There is a hint of citrus also. It tastes mildly chocolately. The hops are very apparent. It wouldnt be Stonse otherwise. I also detect some caramel. It goes down smooth. It leaves a burnt malt taste in my mouth. I could drink this beer all night. The alcohol content is a little high, but not so high that I wouldnt be able to keep up. All in all, it is a very good beer. Too bad soon it will be very hard to find.

Pours an light brown, two-finger head, fades slowly and leaves a good lace. Medium carbonation and medium bodied. Deep, rich amber color. Malty nose. Starts with a light sweetness and finishes smooth with just a hint of hoppiness. A very good brown. $6.00 for a 22oz bottle from Colonial Spirits Acton, MA.

Pours a deep mahogany color with nice ruby highlights and a light creamy white head. Aromas are a mix of burnt malts, smoke, roast, hints of cocoa, and some light molasses. Initially this brew is slight roasty with a nice backing of chocolate flavors. There is a very nice creaminess to this brew without a single drop of astringency. Following there are nice tones of caramels along with subtle hints of dark fruits and some more cocoa. The finish is slightly bitter with a citrus hop bite and a bread and biscuit malt backing. Overall this beer is a nice creation by stone that isn't over the top in any way, but still remarkable for how full of flavors it has. My favorite brown ale so far.

My 700th beer review on BA, so I had to pick something somewhat special. According to Lee, this is a "Anniversary-ized" version Of Lee's mild from 1999 but with more hops, less water and some more roasty grains. Oak was used to the give the impression of bourbon barrel aging.
55 IBUs, 7.8% ABV, OG=18.5 plato, released Aug 16th, 2004.

Pours out to a beautifully sparkling clear dark mahogany, forming a sticky pancake-like light tan head with excellent retention and gorgeous lacing sticking to the sides of the glass in a reticular honeycomb fashion. The aroma is quite different for a Stone product...lots of prunes and plums with vinous barleywine traits, some delicately balanced hops kinda hanging in there which is quite mild for the Stone-style...reminds me of Batch 6000 or Dragon's Milk with a sweet malt nuance. Swirling produces that vinous "pang" that you get in a good barleywine. Cleanly fermented. Carbonation is somewhat mild to moderate. Mouthfeel is smooth with a light dryness in the finish and a chewy body. The taste begins with leather and tobacco, followed by herbaceous yellowing hops and a touch of alcohol in the middle. There is an odd soapiness towards the finish with more tobacco and leather in the aftertaste. Suggestions of easter-bunny faux-chocolate throughout. I'd be inclined to call this an Imperial Brown. When it warms up to room temperature, I get a peculiar green hop herbal/chocolate sourness and the alcohol begins to dry up the brew and lends a dryness to the finish. There is an odd "fishiness" to it that I detect in some Belgian brews like Abbaye des Rocs.

So, this is a pretty good beer. It doesn't blow me away like some of Stone's other brews, 'specially their Double Bastard and IPA. As a matter of fact, I'd be hard-pressed to call this a Stone product in a blind tasting, which I suppose is a good thing for them to be venturing out of their realm of expertise. I don't really feel pressed to buy another bottle of this, but I'm also getting more picky and selective as I have some really freakin' amazing beers at my disposal here in MI.

Taste: The flavor has a dry grainy aspect. Dry cocoa powder. Chalky hops. Burnt malts. But there's a sweet lacto feel to it as well. All in all, it's a nice little Ying-Yang type of thing going on that makes for a pleasant tug of war.

Drinkability: I usually grade drinkability by answering the following question, "How much desire do I have to drink this beer again??" instead of "How many of these could I kick back in a sitting??" While I could put a lot of these back in a sitting, I also have much desire to drink this beer again. So I give it a high rating for drinkability. It's very flavorful and an enjoyable experience all 'round.

Without the Bum on my side, I don't think I'd have tried any of the last 3 Anniversary Ales from Stone. So I thank you yet again, King of the Bums.

Appearance- Pours a brownish-amber color with a nice tan foamy head. Lacing is about average.

Smell- Tons of caramel and roasted malt notes as well as hop bitterness.

Taste- This one kinda reminds me of a brown ale mixed with an IPA and maybe even some stout or porteresque qualities. Definite strong brown ale tastes with the roasted malt, IPA qaulities with the smooth bitter hops, and the darker beer qualities with a tad taste of burnt coffee. Excellent!

Mouthfeel- Lower carbonation than I was expecting. Medium to heavy taste. Went down super smooth.

Drinkability- May be my favorite brown ale to date. An interesting taste experience. Wondering if this one is ageable at 7.8%?

Poured out a darker shade of bronze with a nice head to go along with it.

Smell consisted of good chocolate notes, some dark fruit, and a whiff of some caramel in the background. Nice hop aromas as well.

Taste was good. Chocolate malts set the backbone of this brew, with some dark fruit notes, a tad on the sweet side, but seemed to go well and seemed to be in place. Finished with a hop kick with some ever so slight spice taste. Some wood and earth tones can be found as well throughout.

Mouthfeel was medium to full bodied, mostly due to the low carbonation in this beer. But the flavors really seemed to shine in this beer because of the low amounts of carbonation.

I gotta say it's a nice brown ale. Not many brown ales out there, and the ones that are out there, just seem to do the average down the middle of the road type. Nice to see a little twist envolved with this one.

This turned up at a local grocer this week.
Nice simple presentation in the screen printed bomber.
An ok beer to look atdeep brown with a small bubbly tan head, that goes fast leaving minimal lacing.
Nice strong caramel malt aroma,hops in back.
Veryunusual taste to this one..the caramel malts are first then a great Stone hopiness invades..but during the invasion chocolate and coffee like flavours push through,lingering spicy bitterness..odd but lovelly.
Exciting mouthfeel,
Unusual beer not sure of the style,but what the heck its Stone and its good stuff.

Dark brown body very porter like. Tan head fades quick but leaves a good lace. aroma is malty, nutty and coffee. Chocolate malt through and through. Light on the hops, especially coming from these guys. Big coffee backbone. I was thinking this american brown ale would satisfy me with hops and alcohol. Not so. Weak in both areas. A slightly above average American brown in my opinion.

Poured a deep copper brown color. Absolutely gorgeous. Tan head formed, but didn't stick around long at all. Dammit!

The aroma is raisiny caramel. Reminds me of a homebrewed barleywine of mine where I used just a bit much Special B. Hops are very assertive, with a raw grassy aroma. Alcohol makes it's presence known by driving the hops straight into your brain.

The taste is not good. The alcohol dominates the flavor. It is almost as if someone took a hoppy brown ale, poured it in a glass, and spiked it with a shot of vodka. I think the herbal flavor hops are driving me faster towards that decision. The malt is a touch dry, and this only exascerbates the problem. It is raisiny/pruney in nature, and just kinda turns the tongue off as soon as it hits. This is a huge disappointment for me, but hey, I can't like every beer, right?

Mouthfeel is just a touch too dry and astringent. Again, the malt and hops are accentuating this in the worst possible way.

As a result of the taste and mouthfeel, I have to give this one low marks for drinkability. It's going to be a real struggle to finish this one. It's a damn shame, because I really love the other Stone brews I've had, and was really looking forward to this beer, but it just simply does not agree with my tastebuds. :-/

Pours a dark, reddish brown color, with a medium-sized, tan head. There are lots and lots of bubbles forming at the bottom of my glass and shooting upwards - very pretty. A small amount of lace remains on the glass as the beer is consumed.

The scent is quite strong - dark chocolate, alcohol and toffee, with a faint hint of hops at the end of the scent. I can't wait to taste this...

And the taste doesn't disappoint. A rather dry chocolate taste leads to
a caramel-like finish. There's a decent amount of bitterness, presumably much of it hop-related, but there isn't an overwhelming hop presence as I'd expect from a Stone beer. The beer is rather dry, and as it warms, the sweet caramel flavors get stronger, mixing quite nicely with the bitter chocolate notes. I wish I had a bowl of chili to go with this - a quite yummy beer!

Smells and looks fruity yet tastes strong. An imperial mild, and given it started from a mild beer that makes sense. The bourbon and wood and roast in there understated. Quite good. Very good for a brown, peculiar for a strong. From a generous Yankee at Doug Shoemaker's court.

Kind of strong iced tea sort of brown, shows a distinct reddish tinge. Head starts out strong, a raw sugar-colored froth that disappears fairly quickly. This is a Stone beer, there is no doubt about it, the hops dominate both the scent and taste, leaving just enough room for the malt to come into it's own, giving the 8th something that almost resembles balance. Great offering from Stone, but not something that I would want to drink regularly. Since this is a one-time release, maybe the folks at Stone were expecting this kind of response. If I want a Southern California brown, there's always Levitation Ale.

ruby brown with a weak tan head. real nice nutty fruity toffee and chocolate aroma, that usual stone hops presence. very nice so far. taste is big on light chocolate flavors, with a dark fruitiness. there is also a bit of brown sugar, hops, and the toffee from the smell. some alcohol is present, adding a nice warming effect. nice rich full body with fairly low carbonation. this beer seems lieka cross between a wee heavy and a belgian strong dark. it's very interesting, and i'll be picking up a couple more.

A cool cranberry-red and brown, with a small light tan head (well, more a ring than a head), but the lacing is decent. Roasted caramel smell, bitter toffee taste with a slightly overripe fruity edge, a syrupy mouthfeel and a definite hoppy finish. Like just about everything I've had from Stone, there's an appealing alcohol kick at the end. Likeable stuff.

Smell is malty and syrupy like, smells like a barley wine. Fruity scents and roasted malt is in the scent too. Clear scents of chocolate and coffee appear after this warms up a bit.

Taste is strong and just a little sweet. Malt and the hops fight it out in your mouth in this brew. Bitterness, pine and grapefruit tastes jump out at you on first taste and then hide again as the malt and roasted flavor dominate the aftertaste. Alcohol becomes discernable after is warms a bit and leaves a drier aftertaste.

Appearance: Deep ruby brown hue with a succulent tan head leaves magnificant amounts of lacing no worries to be had here folks this is Stone in classic fashion. Aroma: Alcohol notes breeze by the old schnauze while hints of buried ripened fruit and chocolate notes whisp all around my senses along with herbaceously hopped herbal tea notes wow I'm in beer aromatic nirvana. Taste: Mild chocolate syrup with large helpings of hops very rare for any brown mild I've indulged in this is perfect for letting you know where it stands upfront and in your face in my opinion. Just a touch of alcohol and chocolate ripened fruit meld perfectly in the air definitely a beer to be enjoyed by the masses of good beer worshippers like myself. Mouthfeel: Medium bodied evenly carbonated signs of thickness coming threw by some darker roasts of flavor namingly chocolate and caramel wow. Drinkability: Excellent, enjoying life while at the same time holding this beer in high regards goes hand in hand thank you to the Stone folks for a magnificent introduction to why I love Stone beers awesome stuff.

Poured into an imperial pint glass, formed a 1/2" tan head above the reddish brown brew. Head quickly fades to an uneven layer of big and small bubbles, with average to good lacing. Aroma is malty, with dark fruits and a slight alcohol factor. Taste is stronger than I would expect for a brown, but we'll assume for the anniversary and all they meant to push the envelope. Malts please the tongue, but are quickly overcome by some dark fruit/light alcohol notes, as present in the nose. Mouthfeel and drinkability are both good. Not quite what I was expecting for a brown/mild as described, but it'll work in a pinch. Worth a try, before it's gone.

pours with an excellent appearance, thick tan head with small dense bubbles and a clear hazelnut color. rich but mild malt aromas with some subtle hop aromas, fairly restrained aroma for a stone brew. rich mouthfeel full of biscuity bready chocolatly sweet flavors, sugary and chewy. has an astringent hop bitterness that lingers or it could be the alcohol that is in this. very drinkable and highly flavorful.

22oz bottle. Pours a brown/red color with a small head that didn't stick around too long and left very little lacing on the glass. Smells of caramel malts with a little nuttiness and some hops. The flavor is very hoppy. Caramel malts for the backing as well as some bready malts, but hops dominate the flavor in my opinion. Finish is bitter. Seems a bit strong for a brown and a bit too hoppy. It's a good beer and very drinkable though.

Color is a deep, deep dark brown with a thin and wispy layer of tan lace that barely leaves any laced on the glass. Aromas are a mix of roasted nut, bitter chocolate, and some fresh hops. Flavor is quite interesting. With the style listed as a brown ale, this on certainly kicked it up about 14 notches. Imperial Brown Ale, anyone? Actually, it's quite the Non-Stone beer. It's not a hop-infused monster by any stretch. Starts off with some sweet malt, middle shows some nutty flavor mix with baker's chocolate, and finishes with a kick of hops. Extremely well-balanced throughout (I told you it was very un-Stone-like!), with velvety-smooth mouthfeel that covers the ABV like a cloak. In typical Stone fashion, this was very drinkable. I'd love to get a few of these and see how they age.